


shards of a daydream

by tonguetide



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25188784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonguetide/pseuds/tonguetide
Summary: A collection of Zutara drabbles and one-shots based on randomly selected prompts from past Zutara Weeks.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 51





	1. reincarnation

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Zutara Week 2016, Day 2—Reincarnation. 
> 
> It isn't really the traditional reincarnation fic / trope but...well, you'll see, I guess. It's subtler? I hope?

Someone knocks at the door.

Well, not _someone_.

Only one person knocks like that.

Unconcerned and assuming and with the intention of not waiting for an answer at all.

What _is_ the point of knocking, then? He’d really like to know.

“One second,” Zuko says tightly, wrapping the sash around his waist. Katara had warned him that he would need her help—or, at the very least, the help of a servant—but he’d gone and done it anyway.

And look where that had gotten him.

In a little pain and a lot of trouble.

A lot of pain, too, actually. The wound has fully reopened. Blood drips down his arm and blends into his robes.

“I’m coming in,” she announces. The door creaks open.

Agni save him.

He sucks a breath in and squeezes his eyes shut when he hears her groan. “ _Zuko_ —”

“Please don’t start—“

“I _told_ you that—“

“Katara, I said—“

“—didn’t need to be this difficult—“

“I can do it, seriously—“

“—all you had to do was _ask_ —“

“—it doesn't even hurt anymore, really, I—“

“—oh, so we’re lying to each other now? Well—”

“Fire Lord Zuko?” a guard asks, snapping to attention in the doorway, their bickering too constant an occurrence to fear interrupting. They both spin to face the interruption. “The door was left open. Do you require assistance?”

Zuko glares at Katara. She smiles sweetly at the guard. “We’re perfectly fine, thank you,” she tells him. He watches the scene warily but then takes the Fire Lady’s word as his masters’, and leaves.

Zuko braces himself. The door clicking shut behind him sounds like the gods laughing at his imminent demise.

A slow, harrowing death.

“ _Zuko_.”

Ah, there it is.

The sharp, harsh snap of a furious wife.

He spins to face her. “Katara,” he says placatingly, “I swear to Agni. It’s not that bad.”

She doesn’t look at him. She glares at his shoulder and he can see her trying to stabilize her breathing, trying to stabilize her heart rate. He can all but hear her inner monologue: _I’m not going to yell at him, I’m not going to yell at him, I really shouldn’t yell at him, I shouldn’t yell at him, He deserves to be yelled at, Should I yell at him? I shouldn’t yell at him, I’m going to yell at him._

“Kyoto!” she grinds out between clenched teeth. “Kyoto, I need water!”

It’s brought a moment later with a concerned grimace and a respectful parting bow. Katara acknowledges neither, twirling the water from the bowl and shoving it against his shoulder.

He hisses in pain and her eyes finally condescend up to his. They’re narrowed but her voice holds her apology. “I told you not to try it on your own.”

“It’s not that bad,” he mumbles, even as his face flushes and his eyes drop from her face. He has never been able to lie to her. “I would have waited but I was running late.”

“You’re twenty minutes early, Zuko,” she spits.

He squeezes his eyes shut in anticipation.

Realization comes a silent beat later.

“No,” she says, dropping her hands from his—healed? How had she worked that quickly? Except that anger, he supposes, is the mother of all motivators—shoulder, taking a step back, glinting eyes shooting wider than the ocean. “You better not be implying what I think you are, or La _help us all_ , I will make you go alone.”

She’s not kidding.

She doesn’t tend to, when she’s this irritated.

And the only thing worse than an angry Katara is an _angrier_ Katara—the inevitable result of discovering the ball thrown in her husband’s honor was no celebration, but an opportunity for desperate nobility to weasel their daughters into the ( _married. MARRIED._ ) Fire Lord’s more... _intimate_ attentions.

It was disgusting.

He probably should warn her. Probably should have already; she hadn’t ever come to one of these with him—both other times they had occurred she had been hundreds of miles and hundreds of degrees south—so, besides being concerned for his shoulder, she was excited.

He hates disappointing her.

And he doesn’t _want_ to go—never had, never did, never would, never...well, all the other nevers, too, that he can’t currently think of because her teeth are bared like a half-starved tigerdillo’s terrified mother—in the first place. That’s why the threat is so petrifying.

To be perfectly frank, he had been shocked, upon becoming Fire Lord, at all of the things he’d had to do that he didn’t want to. Not in an arrogant or spoiled way—he’d expected many, many undesirable meetings and discussions—but in honest surprise. This was the _stupidest_ event he had ever heard of. A celebration of life? For him?

Good Agni above, he was _still alive_.

But the Fire Sage’s word was as good as the dragons’, and Zuko was loath to deny them anything.

(Especially when Katara had overheard their requests of him and his ensuing, flat denial; especially when she had insisted that he went—it was a celebration of _his_ life, of course he must go—and especially when she held an excited glimmer in her eyes that told him she had a personal investment, too. She was looking forward to a ball.

Because, who is he kidding, if he’s loath to deny the Fire Sages then he is _incapable_ of denying her.)

He says none of this, of course. He is not nearly wise enough for that.

No. Instead of answering, he clears his throat and raises his gaze to the ceiling.

Would he _ever_ feel composed around her? According to...everyone _ever_ , that symptom of love—nerves—should have worn off by now.

“Those are some interesting cracks,” he says, simultaneously prolonging and accelerating his mariticide, but they _are_ interesting cracks, to be fair—long and...and lovely, really, and...old? and…nice...“I wonder how long they’ve—”

“ _You mean to tell me it takes you twenty minutes to walk five hallways?_ " Katara screeches.

He flinches. “I didn’t _mean_ to tell you _anything_. You happened to find out, despite my more self-preserving wishes—”

 _“Zuko_!” His gaze snaps to her face—crimson flushed and sweat streaked and blue eyes boiling with rage and... _Agni_ , if she isn’t the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen—and his shoulders slump.

“I’m sorry, Katara,” he sighs. “Seriously. I am.”

Her glare does not soften.

“I just…” He pauses, trying to form words under the volcanic weight of her scrutiny. “I didn’t want to burden you. I know you’ve been looking forward to it.”

“Tying a sash is not a _burden_ ,” she snaps. “Rehealing a wound that I had closed earlier is a burden.” She lifts his arm up and points to his sleeve. “Bending blood stains out of your robes is a burden.”

She drops his arm and he winces in pain.

Now her eyes soften, if only a fraction, and, stepping away from him, she runs her hands down her face. “I just don’t want you to be in pain all night.”

“You already healed me, Katara. I’ll be alright.”

“I _know_ ,” she says, voice still muffled by her hands, “but it’s too deep to fully heal, so it could reopen while we’re dancing, or—”

A small smile flits across his lips. “While we’re dancing?”

“Yes, obviously, unless you want to dance in the middle of the hall by yourself—”

Like she’s been stung, her hands pop from her face. She stares at them.

He stiffens. “What—”

“Aytari is going to kill me,” she whispers, turning her palms to face him. They’re covered in golden dust—dust that must have painted her face.

He glances at her features but nothing seems to have changed. Of course, he thinks she is flawless without complexion enhancement; nonetheless, her concerns seem misplaced. “It’s not smeared,” he tells her. “I don’t see a problem.”

“Oh, _thanks_ , Zuko,” she bites, rolling her eyes. “I’m so glad my face isn’t a problem.”

He cringes and wonders how he still gets himself in these situations. “That’s not—”

“It doesn’t matter what you see, anyway,” she says. “Aytari will find the smears. And then she’ll kill me.”

“I won’t let her,” he nods valiantly, smile further fueled.

Katara snorts and finally looks him in the eye. Her smirk fades slowly into a frown. “This isn’t a burden, Zuko. You’re not a burden. How many times do I have to tell you that to get it through your thick skull?”

He drops his eyes. “I didn't want to ruin your night,” he mumbles.

She steps towards him. “You're much more important to me than a ball, thank you. This,” she says, stabbing his uninjured shoulder, “your _health_ , is much more important than a ball.” Raising her eyebrows she asks, “Got it?”

He looks at her for a long moment, drinking in her sincerity. It’s in the worried tilt to her eyebrows, the frown tugging at her lips, the youthful scrunch to her nose. He leans forward and kisses her forehead. “Got it,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you are,” she says, raising her hand to cup his cheek. She pauses a moment before scrubbing her hand across his face in random circles. “And now you’re golden, too.”

Then she scurries from the room. And she’s _laughing_ , which is his favorite sound in the universe, of course, especially when she’d been so angry not minutes prior—but Agni above, it wasn’t nearly that funny.

But he’s grinning when he calls Kyoto back for more water, so he supposes he’s a hypocrite.

\---

Katara isn’t angry with him.

Not at all.

She _loves_ it.

And he wonders when she’ll ever stop surprising him.

She sips purple wine from a silver chalice as woman after woman throws themselves at him and she _laughs_. The entire time! And when he finally manages to politely yank the conversation away from wherever the woman had led it and introduce his wife, Katara would smirk at him and lean to whisper something that invariably made the women laugh.

As the night progresses—a whirl of hanging banners and golden gowns and a sea of drunken fools—a glint in her eyes tells him that she knew that this was coming. Before, he must have missed it while he was busy trying to keep himself alive.

Around midnight, someone on the far side of the ballroom draws everyone’s attention, and finally he can pull her away to ask.

He chooses a nice, hidden little niche in the adjoining courtyard. Drooping vines give them privacy and the moonlight makes her even more beautiful. He forgets his purpose for a second.

Before he can regain it, though, she explodes in laughter. “Oh, Zuko,” she manages. “I’ve been trying so hard to be civil. Don’t be angry. Please, _please_ let me again next time. I’ll try harder to be polite. I promise. But—” She meets his eyes and erupts again, throwing her arms around his stiff, confused form, resting her head against his chest, and grinning like a maniac. “—it’s so _hard_.”

He leans back enough to meet her gaze. “What?” he asks.

It takes a moment for her to compose herself enough to speak. “You’re just so... _awkward_ ,” she says, already laughing again. “It’s _hilarious_. It’s like I’m at a play. Toph _told_ me these types of parties were fun but I didn’t expect—”

“Wait,” he says, “ _what_ did Toph tell you?”

She sobers a little but she’s still smiling. “Everything.”

He scowls. “Traitor.”

She grins and laces her hands behind his neck. “You’ll let me come again, right? Next time? If I promise not to laugh?”

“Take it back,” he says, putting his hands on her waist and pulling her closer.

“Take what back?”

“I’m not awkward.”

She fights the laugh bravely, he thinks. First pursing her lips tightly, then snorting, then falling into a smirk, until, finally, the flood gates open and she laughs again. He smiles and rests his forehead on hers.

“You’re many things, love,” she whispers, glancing at his mouth. “Awkward is one of them.”

He parts his lips to...defend himself, when something—or, someone, rather—tugs at his sleeve. He furrows his eyebrows and glances down.

Two young children—a boy and a girl, no older than eight—stand wide eyed in front of them. They are both clearly Fire Nation children—amber eyes and pale skin and dark hair and fancy red robes.

He steps out of Katara’s hold but leaves one arm wrapped around her shoulders. She leans into his side with a content smile on her face. “Hello,” she greets softly.

The young girl snaps out of whatever star-struck stupor she had been in and falls into a deep bow. When the boy at her side doesn’t move, she punches his shoulder. “ _Bow_ , idiot,” she hisses.

Katara glances at him with a suppressed grin. Then, turning back, she says, “There’s no need for that.”

The children jerk upright.

“What are you both doing at a party like this?” she asks, amused. “Where are your parents?”

“We ran off,” the boy says. He doesn’t take his huge eyes off of Zuko. “We wanted to see the Fire Lord in person!”

“Shut _up_ ,” the girl hisses.

Zuko smiles and thinks of an abandoned Air Temple and a young, overworked girl with long, chocolate curls yelling at her brother for not picking up after himself, whacking food from his plate because they were rationing, punching him for “forgetting” to wash the dishes.

He sets the memories aside. “I’m not that special,” he says. “What are your names?”

“That’s why I wanted to see you!” the boy proclaims, ignoring his sister’s punch. “I was named after you!”

Zuko blinks.

“What he is _trying_ to say,” the girl says with a roll of her eyes, “is that his name is also Zuko.”

Zuko blinks again.

Well...yes. He had gathered that much from the boy’s exclamation.

That didn't mean it made any sense.

Katara leans her head to rest on his shoulder.

The boy—Zuko— _Zuko_ —starts bouncing up and down and rubbing his hands together. He talks so quickly, words flooding from his mouth, that even his sister cannot contain him. “How you fought off that assassin was so brave! Does your arm hurt? We heard that you saved Lady Katara!” He turns to Katara. “Did he save you, Lady Katara? I want to be that brave one day! I want to save—”

“Zuko! Aiko! Where are you?”

“Now look what you’ve done!” the girl—Aiko—groans. “That’s _mom_. You’ve wasted all of our time.”

“No,” Katara says gently. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Her voice prods Zuko from his reverie, and he crouches down at the boy’s side. “How old are you?” he asks.

“Six!” he says proudly.

Zuko smiles. Katara asks Aiko a question, but his focus is in front of him. “What do you like to do for fun?” he asks.

The boy’s eyes gleam. “I fight with swords,” he says. Then his face drops. “But Dad won’t let me get _real_ swords until I’m twelve.”

“Your dad is a smart man,” Zuko says. “I didn’t start training until I was twelve.”

He perks up. “Really?”

“Really.”

“My sister wants to learn, too,” he sulks.

“What’s wrong with that?”

The child scrunches his features in annoyance. “Girls don’t fight,” he says. “I have to protect her.”

He doesn’t snort because he thought the same thing, once. Until Azula turned two.

“Want to know a secret?” Zuko whispers.

He nods eagerly.

“Katara helped me fight the assassin,” he says. “She’s the best fighter in the world.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration.

His eyes widen, flicking between Zuko and Katara. “She helped you?”

“Yeah. The assassin surprised me and cut my shoulder.” He points to where the bulge of the bandage can almost be made out. “I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.”

“But...but in school we learned that you beat Azula! She was super powerful!”

Zuko smiles a little, and, because he can make out approaching footsteps, he ruffles the boy’s hair and rises. “Katara helped with that, too,” he whispers fondly.

“I thought she only healed you and saved your life.”

Zuko raises his eyebrow. “She also did that.”

The boy glances at his sister and frowns. “I guess, she can train with me,” he says, “but I still don’t want her to.”

Zuko laughs.

“ _There_ you are, you demonic children!” calls a shrill voice that’s heavy with relief. “Scaring your mother like that is--”

She cuts off abruptly, eyes widening in horror. Then she collapses onto the ground. “Forgive me, My Lord, My Lady. Forgive my children, please, they--”

“No need,” Katara says brightly, no longer excessively uncomfortable in these situations which, as a result of her position, are constant and inevitable. “We were just getting to know them.”

The woman doesn’t raise her head from the ground because it’s Katara who has spoken, not Zuko. Indeed, she continues to apologize frantically. So, restraining an eye roll, Zuko says, “It isn’t a problem. They’re sweet.”

Katara smirks at him.

 _What?_ he asks her with his eyes. _That wasn’t awkward._

She purses her lips together to prevent a grin and turns back to the rising woman. “It was very nice to meet you, Aiko. And you, Zuko.”

“Thank you, My Lady,” Aiko says.

“Do you think we could talk again?” the boy asks, jumping excitedly.

“ _Zuko_ ,” the woman snaps. Aiko goes to punch him but the woman catches her hand and gives her a sharp look. Then she takes the boy’s hand, too. She folds into a bow again. “Thank you for your kindness,” she says. “My Lord, My Lady.”

“Goodbye,” Katara says.

He dips his head. “Have a good evening.”

As the woman leads her children away, both look back and find Zuko and Katara smiling and waving at them. When they’ve peeled through the vines, though, Katara spins, grinning, to face him.

“It’s not children,” she says, “only adults.”

“If you’re going to say something ambiguous you might as well—”

“Being _awkward_ ,” she interrupts, rolling her eyes. “You’re only awkward with adults.”

He frowns. “I am _not—_ ”

“But,” she cuts in again, leaning closer towards him, “you’re very sweet with kids.” Then she takes his hand and places it on her stomach, smiling. “Which is good.”

Warmth floods his heart. He never forgets, not really—it’s a constant pounding in the back of his head that he will be a father, that they will be parents—but any reminder reinforces the incredulity.

He brings their foreheads together again.

“I love you,” he says.

Mischief flicks into her eyes and he holds his breath, because her mischief isn’t ever good for him.

“We should name him Zuko,” she whispers.

Then she starts laughing. Like it’s the funniest thing in the world. Like she’s cracked herself up in a way that no one else can, no one else ever could.

And— _Agni_ —it isn’t even that funny.


	2. color

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Zutara Week 2013, Day 1—Calor
> 
> (Except that I misread "calor" as "color," and by the time I realized the mistake I had already written the entire fic. So the prompt for this is actually color(s) because, apparently, I am illiterate.)
> 
> Warning for implied major character death!

In every story he’d ever told her, leaves fell like stars from the sky and painted the Fire Nation streets a deep russet. The ground crunched as you made your way home or abroad, to the market or to the temples. 

_“It crunches?” she asks him, as moonlight pales the quiet night. “Like snow?”_

_His face scrunches. “I hate snow.”_

_“Of course you do.” She laughs and freezes some water from the fountain—the source is still questionable as the Temple hadn’t been inhabited by anyone but their group in ages—and pushes the snowball into his shoulder. “Because it’s one of the many places I’ve beaten you.”_

_With an indulgent smile he fights her off, until she decides that his shoulder is much better occupied as a resting place for her head, not her snowball, and she bends the remnants away. “You’ll never let me live it down.”_

_“I know. You owe me forever.”_

_He sighs. “We’ve already covered this.”_

_“Alright,” she relents, letting warm silence last a breath before drenching him in more snow._

When you inhaled, the cleanliness and the spices were supposed to argue for domination. They were supposed to tickle your nostrils until you could do naught but sneeze—and hope, in your incapacitated state—that your illness tainted not the place’s beauty. 

Rain was supposed to make the shadows softer and the starlight brighter; hostels teeming with histories and adventures, markets bustling with desires and indulgences. He’d promised her the smell of the streets after the rain was better than even that of sea-prune stew; a tangy and earthy scent that dug past your nose and into your lungs, that grounded and freed you all at once. 

Droplets were meant to stay on the fallen leaves for days, feeding them drink even as they crumpled and crisped. The leaves popped with the dewy remnants—oranges and browns that argued so fiercely with the golden scarlet of the trees; wood against flame, soil against sunrise.

_“This is the first time I’ve seen the sunrise in ages,” she admits, feet dangling over the frozen pier._

_He nudges her shoulder. “You don’t sleep enough.”_

_“You’re one to talk,” she smirks, “Mr. Sleep-Is-A-Waste-Of-Time.”_

_Light pink dusts his cheeks. “It_ is _,” he insists._

_“I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”_

_“Cheeky woman,” he mutters, rolling his eyes._

_There’s a comfortable pause as the morning filters through the ice. Pale, timid pinks; bright, presumptuous ambers; faint, persistent blues. A dozen crystal glaciers hold the daybreak in their arches and reflect it back out again like a lantern’s light into a mirror. The air is sharp and fresh and piercing and everything about her home has changed but this—_ this— _well, she isn’t sure this could ever change._

_“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, because the soft peace of nature’s creations are too sacred to be ruined by man’s insignificance._

_He only pulls her in closer and kisses the side of her head._

Then, after two weeks of the season, the flowers would bloom. Every part of the nation held some part of this flora—rounded lilies with sharp, fiery petals; roses layered with crimson and gold; flat coral daisies with sunshine as a border. 

_“But I can’t_ see _it, Zuko. If you don’t show me I can’t_ see _it.”_

_“Toph can’t see anything and she gets on just fine.”_

_She pouts up at him. “Please,” she implores. “I really, really,_ really _love flowers.”_

_He stares at her blankly but she sees the obstinance draining from his eyes, the relenting frown that means she’s seconds away from securing the object of her argument._

_She grins. He narrows his eyes._

_“Compromise,” he decides, moving over toward the polished desk in the corner of the room. He brandishes a brush and multiple unopened containers of ink from the middle drawer and then sits on the velvet chair. He waves her over._

_“You don’t have parchment,” she says._

_“Will you just come here?”_

_“Does this mean I will never see it for myself?” she asks, even as she saunters towards him._

_He frowns up at her. “No, of course not. We’re leaving in like three weeks.”_

_“But then why are you painting them?”_

_“So I can show you now. Then you don’t have to wait until we get there.”_

_She doesn’t see how it’s a compromise. She sees that she’s_ won _. But she bites her lip to contain her smile, all the same, and lets him have his moment._

_He has her sit on the edge of the desk, glancing up to meet her gaze before pulling the hem of her shirt up to just under her chest, so her stomach is exposed._

_And she laughs because even though they’ll be married in three weeks (23 days, to be exact) he blushes rose as he does it._

_Her laugh only makes his flush deepen. But he works through this one, dipping a brush in the yellow ink and swirling it over her stomach._

_She stops laughing._

_The flowers he creates are beautiful but they are more beautiful because_ he _creates them._ Them _, soft figments of his memory untainted by reality; proof that, despite the dominating stories of failure and hatred from his childhood, there were times that were good and pieces that were good, and that there is good in his country. Every brushstroke sings the love he holds for it._

_“I didn’t know you could paint,” she whispers when he has almost finished a third. Chin tucked into her chest, her eyes roam the whirling colors._

_“I hadn’t known you could sing.”_

_“But…” she says, trailing off and shaking her head, unable to find words to suit the images before her. “This is different.”_

_He doesn’t speak until he’s finished the flower and set the brush back down. He scrutinizes his work for a moment before looking up at her and wrapping his arms around her calves. “Not really. Your voice is beautiful.”_

_She smiles at him softly and runs her fingers through his hair. “I can’t wait to see them.”_

When the season drew to a close was what she’d heard most about. That last week of autumn. After the roads were colored with every leaf from the trees and the humid rain had beat down on the brick rooftops and the flaming flowers had peaked and wilted in place. 

The stars were brightest in the sky then, after the few long weeks of rain. They painted the horizon so silver that every shopkeeper put out his lantern, every lightless traveler could safely find their way. The moon was brightest, too, and that’s what excited him the most. She would love the way its light rippled down. How it could be _felt_ , not just sensed—a tangible presence in their midst. He told her how even though he always loved the sun for all its power and force, the moon in the Fire Nation autumn kept him steady, set him free. How he could believe that the moon could anchor infinitely many waterbenders—just as the sun birthed fire—gazing up at it from the streets of his home. 

_“Ready?” he asks her, sneaking up from behind and intertwining their hands._

_Ba Sing Se looms out before them in all its pomp and contemporary glory. It's so large that houses line the furthest point of the horizon, and probably stretch out for miles beyond._

_She thinks of her home and how much like this city it is becoming—modern and stylish and_ different— _and she knows that it could never be the same. Things change and she acknowledges that, but she would’ve liked to have authority on the changes, to stand for the home she thought she knew so well. She and Sokka would have helped, she thinks._

 _But then she thinks of Sokka and his_ new _home on Kyoshi; she thinks of the time after the war that she spent in the Fire Nation—falling in love with the city and its leader; present three seasons of the year—and would she really change it all? If given the option would she really choose now to go back home following the war? To give up all the things she had gained for scraps of her childhood?_

 _She looks at him standing next to her and she’s glad she didn’t. Regret was a cruel demon—stealing the happiness one had for utopic ideas of what_ could _have been—but she knows that she made the right choice. Nothing in existence, nothing in creation, could_ ever _make her happier than him._ He’s _her home now, a sure and constant mainstay in the changing, wavering world._

_“Yes,” she smiles, turning towards him, placing her hands on his cheeks. “I’m excited.”_

But autumn wasn’t like his stories at all. 

It was the first day—the rains hadn’t started, the flowers hadn’t sprouted, the leaves were just starting to trickle from the trees; like teardrops, like blood—but she couldn’t see any color. 

Everything was black. 

The sky and the grass and the buildings and the trees. The people and their whispers and the ships and the sun. 

The whites of the mourning clothes were black; the reds of the bricked rooftops were black; the edges of her vision were black. 

Toph’s there to catch her on the steps of the Palace—she’s been in the Fire Nation since the war ended. She’s crying and Katara hasn’t seen her cry in ages and Katara wonders if she’s supposed to cry, if she’s supposed to feel something other than what she does—numbness, darkness, blankness, blackness. She hasn’t been able to cry. She’s not ready. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready. 

Weeks pass and the rain starts and she doesn’t leave his room, just sits there and stares out the window. Leaves food on her plate, leaves worried murmurs in her wake, leaves tears unshed. She doesn’t move at all. 

When Sokka and a pregnant Suki get in, Katara forgets to offer her congratulations. They stand in the doorway with forced smiles and drawn countenances and she blinks at them for a moment before turning back to the window. 

She hears them speak to her but she doesn’t _really_. Like the whisper of the wind or the crashing of the sea—ever present, never acknowledged.

The days swirl with the nights but they may as well be the same. Dark and bleak and black. 

At autumn’s end she sails away on a black sea.

She becomes the Ambassador for the Southern Water Tribe at the Peace Summits and she travels to conferences year round. 

But when, in her late forties, the Fire Nation holds a Summit in autumn, she flatly refuses to go. 


	3. clandestine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Zutara Week 2015, Day 3—Clandestine

“Azula.”

“Yes, Father?”

“I want you to visit the prison tonight.”

Azula smirks but Zuko, who has turned to Ursa in protest, doesn’t see it. 

Ursa levels a gaze at her husband. “Ozai,” she says carefully. “Surely Zuko can accompany her?”

He disregards his wife’s request with one pointed, polished eyebrow. “You will go alone,” he continues, shifting back to Azula. “Without a single guard or escort.”

Ursa opens her mouth to argue but seemingly thinks better of it. To compensate, she glances at her son with sadness in her eyes. 

But he doesn’t want her pity. He reigns in his anger and eats in silence. 

Dinner ends soon after—tension is no evening entertainment—and Zuko ensures that Ozai has long disappeared before hurrying after Ursa. He catches the sleeve of her swirling, sumptuous maroon robes.

“Mom?” he asks quietly. 

Never in Zuko’s life has she started in surprise. She expects everything, predicts everything, and it amazes him. Tonight is no exception. 

No, instead she frowns down at his wiry form. “Zuko,” she says, glancing behind her, putting an arm around his shoulder, leading him away from wary, ardent ears, “didn’t your father tell you to go to bed?”

“I have a question,” he says. 

She looks at him for a long moment before nodding, linking their arms, and leading him to his room. 

She clicks the door shut before asking, softly, “What is it, sweetheart?” 

She already knows. He can tell. 

Still, he sits on his mattress and twists his fingers together, flushes, and looks at his lap. His heart beats a frantic rhythm that screams harsh, unforgiving words like _disobedience_ and _betrayal_ and he doesn’t want to be associated with those—he doesn’t want to disobey his father’s commands or betray his trust—but he _must_ know. Surely the Spirits understand; surely Agni himself understands. 

He _must_ know.

The bed dips as she sits next to him, but it isn’t until she rubs encouraging circles on his back that he gains the courage to speak. 

“I...I thought that the heir of the throne was supposed to visit the prison alone.” He looks up at her, imploring. “Why is Azula going?”

Ursa doesn’t break his gaze but her resigned features tell him how desperately she wants to. “It’s her birthday, Zuko. Your father wanted her to feel special.”

He looks down, eyebrows drawn. “We didn’t do anything on _my_ birthday,” he mumbles.

“Well, now that’s just not true,” his mother says, jumping at the chance to lighten the mood. She flicks his ear and he catches her soft smile. “You and I had fun in the Gardens.”

He wrinkles his nose but a warm feeling rises in his chest anyway. He should be too old to enjoy going to the Gardens with his mother—and he _is_ , if it’s Azula who’s asking—but the pond is soothing and the company lovely and the conversation reassuring, and it’s his favorite thing to do.

“The turtle ducks were sick and helpless,” she continues, ruffling his hair. “I knew you wouldn’t just let them die. They love you now. You saved them.”

He shrugs and the conversation slides away.

\---

When he feels furthest from the sun he knows the moon has peaked in the sky. He cracks open his door and slips outside the Palace. 

A million voices shriek protests in his brain but he ignores every one.

It’s not hard, getting out. He hasn’t done it often because Azula almost always discovers him—mapping out stars on the rooftops, caring for the puma goats in the stables, spying on the city through the milky windows of the library—but that’s only made him more cautious.

As he knew it would be, the road to the prison is empty. She won’t discover him tonight. Their father had taken all the guards from the roads to allow her the solitude the trip demands. 

Still, Zuko keeps to the shadows of the hedges. The stars’ light is enough to make the road visible a dozen miles away. So, if one _were_ to watch, any trespassers would be visible.

When he has traipsed through scarlet daisies and dewy grass and moonlit shrubbery, when his breathing is heavy and his lungs are strained with the cold, he reaches his destination. 

He has been here before, of course, but never without company, never out of sunlight’s comfort. The world is so much harsher without the sun; so much more threatening, so much lonelier. He stretches his neck to its limit, eyes wide with sudden apprehension; he can’t see the top of the prison. It looms up beyond the clouds. 

The door is intimidating, too—two monstrous chunks of metal that glint meanly in the moon's silver glare. Bits of torchlight emanate onto the cement just outside, casting the whole courtyard into eerie shadow. If he angles his body just right, he can see that the doors are propped open in anticipation of Azula. 

Two bulky guards stand watch on each side. He isn’t the most clever—never has been, living in Azula’s shadow—but he’s smart enough to know that he won’t be able to slip past them. So, as distraction, he sets fire to a bush a few yards to his right. Then he shuffles softly off to his left before they can spot him. 

They are quick to react—confusion giving way to near chaos in the rush to right the treeline before the Princess sees—and he slips easily around them and inside. For a moment he’s rather proud of himself. But, then, perhaps security should be a bit tighter. 

Now a staircase looms before him. Torches light the pale stones up and up until they disappear, curving to the right. He takes a few hefty steps before he hears the men from outside calling for extra help—had he really done so much damage? That hadn’t been his intention at all—and sudden, heavy footsteps drum down the stairs. 

Frantically, he pushes behind a curtain and slinks against a wall, making himself as small as possible. The thrumming rhythm of the pounding makes his heart rate spike. Forever passes and _still,_ he hears footsteps. 

So he leans against the wall behind him for standing support. He’s tired, after all; he had trained all day. Just a brief reprieve. 

He falls through the wall. 

He stifles a shout of surprise as his arm scrapes on the cement and his knee jams onto a step. 

He nearly curses in pain (it _hurt_ ) or exasperation (there’s always _something_ , isn’t there?) or a million other emotions that scramble through his brain, but then they stop short. 

A terrifyingly powerful curiosity overwhelms him as he gazes upwards. 

He had jammed his knee onto a _step_. 

A different step. Belonging to a different staircase. 

His eyebrows furrow. 

This one is much narrower; it can hold one person at most. It’s dark and silent and he’s confused because the guards are still shoving each other up and down the other staircase, and couldn’t they just use this one? Wouldn’t it be infinitely more effective?

But not a single footstep comes from this pathway. It seems to curve up and to the left, rather than spiraling up and to the right like the wider one beyond the wall. 

If he goes back to where he had just escaped, he will surely be discovered.

So he starts ascending. 

He doesn’t really know what his purpose was in coming here. All he knew was that _Azula_ was going, and if that was fair then he didn’t know the definition of justice.

Plus, curiosity couldn’t kill.

He sprouts a flame in his hand to give himself light. Polished, gleaming, silver stone paves his path and coats the walls. Everything looks exactly the same. The staircase spirals up and up and seems to never end. Over and over, stepping onto a bright stair glowing from his fire. Then another. And another. 

It’s not until he’s climbed for almost a quarter hour that he spots an irregularity. 

An engraving on the stone wall. 

_Proceed with caution._

The characters are old—a stark difference to the pristine stone—but carved in a neat, sleek script.

Zuko frowns. He moves his flame closer to make sure he has read it correctly. _Caution_ _?_ Since when had the Fire Nation ever worried about that? 

He keeps climbing. 

Another fifteen minutes pass and a new carving reads _A gift to Fire Lord Azulon -General Yon Rha._

This gives him even more pause. His grandfather? The gift must be ancient. 

(He cringes at the insensitive thought. May his grandfather rest in Agni’s peace.)

Then he wonders, what could a Fire Lord possibly be gifted that he didn’t already have or couldn’t easily obtain?

He keeps on but the final stop to his journey doesn’t feature a sign. The stairs cut off into an abrupt stone corridor. Face red with exertion and breathing heavy, he checks his shoulder before trekking down it. 

Then he realizes he was wrong. There _is_ an engraving. It’s on the left side of a heavily bolted metal door—a smaller, more manageable version of the main doors—and it reads _The last of the kind_. 

He hesitates. If it was a gift to his grandfather surely it was some kind of monster? A dragon? Something from the Spirit World? 

But whatever is inside can’t be _that_ terrifying. He is strong, after all. For months his bending has been improving. He’s ready to face anything. 

Besides, if it is really that powerful and he _beat_ it...well. He is always searching for things to hold over Azula’s head. 

So he unbolts the door, slides it open, and moves warily inside. 

Then he stops short.

It’s not a monster. 

The room is tiny and the sight is pitiful. A panel of the strongest, thickest glass he’s ever seen separates him from a cold metal... _cage_ , really. Another secure door sits on his right and he assumes it allows the guards entrance to feed _her._

 _Her_ , the half-starved creature in the center of the room. _Her_ , the girl that looks younger than he. _Her_ , the “gift,” the “last of her kind,” the reason for great “caution”. 

He gapes. 

“I’ve already eaten today,” she says, and he can barely hear her. Her voice croaks like it hasn’t been used in years and the words are slow and stiff, like she doesn’t quite know how to fit them together. “You can leave.”

After a moment of indecision he takes a step towards the glass. At the movement her chin lifts from her chest and she meets his gaze with narrowed blue eyes. 

_Blue_ eyes. 

Narrowed, dirty, bloodshot, but _blue_.

The pieces clink together in his mind. 

_Yon Rha_ , the leader of the Southern Raiders. _A gift_ to his grandfather from the raid on the Southern Water Tribe. _The last of the kind_ : the last waterbender.

“You’re new,” she snarls. 

He steps yet closer and realizes her posture is stiff and straight. It must be stealing every inkling of energy she has. He frowns and only stops moving once his nose brushes the glass. “You’re the last waterbender.”

Her cracked lips purse into some poor attempt at a sardonic smile. “How observant.”

“They told us you were dead.”

“They told me I was meant to be.” 

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. Doesn’t know how to respond to the way her clothes engulf her even though they aren’t more than scarlet shreds. Doesn’t know how to respond to the bones that stick out like thorns from her limbs, the hairs that fall like leaves from her head every time she moves it. 

“I don’t need your pity,” she snaps, dragging him from his scrutiny. Her eyes are fiery with pride and disgust. 

“I don’t pity you,” he scoffs. He scrambles for something to say. “I’m just confused. Where are the guards?”

“They ran off a few minutes ago,” she says with a glare. “Shouting something about a ‘garden intruder.’ You, isn’t it? Come to admire the scenery?” Then a tiny hint of a spiteful smirk meets her lips. “Well you’d better hurry to leave before they get back. I’ve heard the staircase is brutal. And narrow. You won’t be able to hide from them in there.”

“I’m not a coward,” he retorts. “I don’t hide from anyone.”

Her smirk deepens and it causes her to cough. Long, wet, hacking, coughs that shake her whole body. She turns to the back of the room, rests her forearms on the wall above her head, and dry heaves. When she spins back to face him her eyes are bright red but there are no tears on her cheeks. 

He knows he shouldn’t have sympathy for her because she’s a prisoner and a waterbender—a dangerous species full of wild and obscene traditions that insult the Fire Nation’s purity by their very existence—but a twinge of concern rattles his heart nonetheless. 

She continues like nothing had happened—posture rigid and voice rough; staring into his eyes like she’s daring him to mention it. He doesn’t. “So, what? Did you just waltz right into this La-forsaken place planning to also waltz right out?” _La?_ Must be some Water Tribe god. But...weren’t they aesthetic? “Why don’t you try the Palace next? Since you’re looking for a death wish?”

Her words take him to Azula. How she likely _did_ waltz in, smirk on her face, haughty gait and fresh, prim clothes to boot. Fury rises in his chest and he narrows his eyes. “ _You’re_ the one looking for a death wish. Holding your tongue is the first step of self-preservation.”

“In the Fire Nation, maybe. At home it was shelter.” She shifts from sitting cross-legged to on her knees. The movement is abrupt and he takes a step back. 

She sees him retreat and she smirks up at him, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Not a coward, huh?” She twists from her new position to grab a bundle of string from the ground behind her. She’s fashioned it into some sort of flower and she fiddles with it in her lap. “You’re just like the rest of them,” she sighs. “Threatening someone else—someone you think is helpless—to make yourself feel better.” 

“You _are_ helpless,” he insists, because he can’t look too far into the fact that she may be right. 

She snaps her glaring eyes to his. For a long moment she doesn’t speak. Then, voice low and dangerous, “You and your people can steal my element from me and take my home from me and take my family from me.” She throws the flower in front of her and straightens to her full height. Which, from her kneeling position on the floor, is not at all high. “But you have not stolen my fight, you cannot take my courage, and you will not take my hope. I am _not_ helpless.” 

Her words bounce off the walls and resound inside his brain as he stares at her. Every part of her appearance disputes her words except her _eyes_. They are red with hunger and lack of sleep and the endless pain of loss but they glint with a cobalt surety that he can’t understand. Free as the sky even as she sits in a metal cage; calm as the sea even as she battles for her life; certain as the stars even as she is starved sick; bright as the sun even as she lives in near darkness. They have seen things he doesn’t ever want to see; they know things he doesn’t ever want to know; they ask questions he doesn’t ever want answered. 

So he looks away. 

His eyes land on the flower she has tossed in front of her. Tightly woven strands form six sharp petals, flowing cleanly from the brown stigma at the center. It must have taken her ages to make.

He stares at it until she looks down, following his gaze. “It’s a stargazer lily,” she grumbles. “Native to the Water Tribe.”

He pauses before muttering, “I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s because no one has. They only grow for the last two weeks of the season of sun. Symbolize prosperity for the hunt.” 

“They’re probably banned from the Fire Nation.” 

Confusion slips into her guarded expression and she glances at him briefly. “Banned?”

He shrugs. “My great-grandfather introduced the law long before I was born. Most foreign plants are poisonous, you know.”

“That doesn’t even…” she trails off, frowning up at him with pale lips that almost match her eyes for color. “Wait. _Your_ great-grandfather?”

He nods absently, watching her hands cup the flower, scoop it from the ground, and raise it to her chest. It’s the same stringy chestnut as her hair and…

His eyes widen at the same time hers narrow. 

It’s the _same_. 

It isn’t made of string at all, but fallen strands of her hair. _Hundreds_ of fallen strands. 

Bile churns in his stomach and he is staring at the...the _contraption_ so intently that he misses her piercing glare. 

“You’re Prince Zuko,” she spits.

He turns and leaves the prison. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there is a STRONG possibility that this makes zero sense hahah. I liked the idea and I didn't want to make the plot too obvious but I think, in my attempts to be obscure and mysterious, that it turned out way too ambiguous. So hopefully it makes sense lol.   
> I imagine Zuko is about twelve, which makes Katara ten. And, if Yon Rha captured her at eight, she's been in prison for about two years.  
> I know she comes off super preachy, and I'm not going to lie I cringed a little as I wrote it. But I feel like if her only company was super intimidating guards, she would jump at the chance to feel brave / strong by standing up to a kid around her age. BraveandPreachy!Katara and YoungandDramatic!Zuko are my favorites.


End file.
